


Close Encounters Cut Scenes and Addenda

by Scedasticity



Series: Close Encounters and associated works [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:16:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3776875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Q&A and miscellanea. Not as spoileriffic as plot Q&A, but more than a few.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Plot-related Q&A (spoilers galore!)

**Anonymous asked you:  
 So why did Earth’s education involve kidnapping in sleep? Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait until it reached first contact or something. Tangential to that, why were the kids picked, since the trolls were picked due to their connection to Feferi.**

Educating Earth doesn’t become necessary unless and until humans are about to get out of their solar system. If they seemed receptive to incoming aliens providing aid, the goblins would be open to the idea of stepping up the schedule, but it doesn’t take very long to work out humans have some severe reservations about aliens bearing gifts.

The kids are a very trial run, an extremely preliminary evaluation, taking a chance to have a look at a few subjects to get a basic idea for how human minds work, how they think, some idea of how they respond to various tactics, what a human perspective is. They wouldn’t have been taken at all if the troll situation had already arisen, but it hadn’t yet, so the goblins were looking at less urgent matters.

As for why these specific kids… I reserve the right to change my mind and say it is for _important authorial handwavey reasons_ , but right now I’ll say I believe the kids were chosen due to their connection with Jade.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 The trolls and the goblins are at war, right? Who is winning? Is grabbing Gl’bgolyb a desperate attempt to force a ceasefire, or are they simply being pragmatic?**

If the goblins were losing, they would have triggered the Vast Glub by now.

(Eridan’s tactical assessment of the situation is pretty accurate. In close combat, the trolls are much better, but the goblins can turn a ship inside out from the other side of a solar system.)

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
Whoever’s in charge of her, what are you feeding Gl’bgolyb, or did you grab a bunch of lusii from Alternia? (And where exactly have you put her? Is it safe enough to protect the trolls if she gets loud?) Also, Gl’bgolyb, do you miss Feferi?**

Senior technician Il-it: We have been feeding the entity clone-synthesized lusus bodies, as this seems to make it somewhat happier than a nutritionally equivalent plain synthesized diet. The entity is being held in a pocket dimension, and we have detected no response in any trolls to any of its vocalizations in objection to the diet provided. We are somewhat concerned that it has appeared to alter its behavior in response to stress to the troll subject connected to it, as no know psychic connection should span dimensions, but we are confident that its vocalizations are not a threat unless a passage to the pocket dimension is held open.

 

 Gl’bgolyb wishes Feferi were closer, and able to hear her, but has not lost track of her completely.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
Is anyone on Alternia or off it aware that the Trolls have been kidnapped? Also, is Her Imperious Condescension aware that Feferi and Gl’bgolyb have been abducted?**

Some of the trolls have neighbors who would have noticed when they vanished in the middle of the day, but alien abduction would not have been their first guess. (Although now I’m imagining Adolescent Troll Fox Mulder who knows the truth and _no one will believe him!!!!_ )

Her Imperious Condescension noticed that something’s _off_ with Gl’bgolyb, but since it’s obviously not the Vast Glub, she’s focusing on the unexpected reversals in the latest invasions instead.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  Question, not sure if spoiler. So since the kids were kidnapped and they don’t plan on going on Earth anytime soon. Does that mean that the guardians are still alive on Earth and that evrything there is going on as usual?**

Yep, the guardians are alive and most of Earth has no idea anything happened.  Bro saw the goblins disappear with Dave, but Mom and Dad just woke up to missing kids and reacted accordingly. Investigation of the kids’ computers led to trying to contact their friends, which led to the discovery their friends were also missing (and where the heck does this Jade kid even live, anyway). Official investigators formed the theory maybe they ran away together? (Much more plausible for Rose and Dave.) Not that it stopped them looking for kids that young, but of course, there were no leads. (There was a “Bro sold them all to human traffickers” theory, but it was dropped due to lack of evidence.) 

Dad and Mom, being Dad and Mom, took Bro’s alien abduction story seriously. They’ve been investigating, and Mom may even have found evidence of the goblin ship being in orbit, or at least in the general area of Earth, when the kids disappeared. Dad has more or less moved in with Mom, though he still keeps up the house in Washington just in case John turns up there — a key is hidden in the usual place and there are notes everywhere about how to get in touch with him. (Dad, Mom, and Bro also made the trip to Jade’s island to look for additional clues, but didn’t find anything.) They’re still looking. 

Becquerel is stashed in a pocket dimension with all the irradiated steaks he can eat and a population of terrorized rabbits to chase. He’s not uncomfortable or bored, but he misses Jade.  


* * *

**asktheoldentrolls said:  
 Are the goblins getting any closer to figuring out how to disconnect a pilot without killing him or her?**

Yes! In fact, they can do it pretty reliably now.

Unfortunately, _disconnected_ does not necessarily imply _rehabilitated_. They’re still working on that part. Some of the former helmsmen are doing really well; others… aren’t.

* * *

**asktheoldentrolls said:  
**  How would they go about trying to rehabilitate a pilot, anyway?  
I’m not sure. I don’t think they’ve settled on a protocol they’re completely happy with, either. (All the experimenting has led to some pilots getting better, some getting worse, and a lot getting really fucking confused.)

* * *

**An anon asked  
is there any form of violence that the goblins WOULD deem acceptable?**

Self-defense, or defense of others. (How strictly they define self-defense depends on who you’re talking about, of course.) Play-violence which is not intended to do any harm and is agreed to by all parties beforehand is allowable, though they find it distasteful. They’re also more lenient with violence towards inanimate objects and extremely ineffective violence.

For example, someone getting forcibly thrown in a mindfuckacoon would have (figurative) points deducted for not cooperating with the corrective measure, but they wouldn’t lose any additional points for the violence of struggling, because they are understood to be defending themselves.

The brawl is a special circumstance because the Threat Evaluator was about to show up, and the punishment was geared towards cowing everyone immediately rather than being any sort of measured response. Ordinarily, everyone would still have gotten into trouble because it just turned into a general brawl. However, if we break down the actions that were described—    
—Vriska would be in trouble because she attacked Eridan with no physical provocation.  
 —Eridan would not be in trouble for punching Vriska’s implant; he was trying to get her off him.  
 —Terezi would be in trouble for hitting Eridan when he was trying to retreat.   
—Karkat would not be in trouble for trying to separate them, even if he was shoving rather than stepping in between.   
—Equius would be in trouble for attacking Karkat (extra trouble because (a) if he was at full strength it would have been potentially lethal, and (b) there’s not even any non-physical provocation).   
—Terezi would not be in trouble for hitting Equius _if she had stopped after the first hit to see what he would do next_ , but she didn’t.   
—Nepeta would not be in trouble for jumping on Terezi _if she had stopped as soon as Terezi was away from Equius_ , but she didn’t.   
—Aradia would not be in trouble for grabbing Equius to get him away from Karkat, if that’s all she did, but it probably wasn’t.   
—Kanaya and Feferi would not be in trouble for forcibly separating Vriska and Eridan.   
—Gamzee would be in trouble for attacking everyone with pillows in the context of a developing brawl. Hitting people with pillows as part of a play-fight would be acceptable if the targets were amenable.

 I think that covers everything before things went completely crazy. (Oh, and if anyone’s wondering, Sollux is the one who got all the utensils taken away by throwing plates at people. For a given value of ‘at’.)

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Have the goblins done something to Gamzee’s brain so that he’s incapable of getting upset, or dwelling on a thought that would make him upset? (Should I know this already?)**

Gamzee had psychic surgery in 36-37, in which the goblins “removed his pathology” and “deactivated a receiver”. Karkat commented on Gamzee going blank in 43. He can still get upset, but whenever he’s on a train of thought which would otherwise lead to non-besopored Gamzee getting really MOTHERFUCKING angry (HONK honk HONK) it just… cuts off suddenly, leaving him adrift.

His avoiding dwelling on thoughts which make him upset is purely his own coping strategy, though.

* * *

****

They are still keeping them somewhere on the ship, cared for by a tech who keeps asking why they didn’t put them back in the Alternian ocean when they had the chance. No one has given a satisfactory response.

* * *

**soulsuckingisaacnewton said:  
 If Ap-ut gets eaten by a crab lusus and the goblins blame the humans for it that’s gonna get ugly. Also what are they going to do about Bec? This is totally going to end well.**

Cut for possible spoilers.  Well, the humans didn’t know Bec was going to do that — no one knew Bec was going to do that, or Ap-ut probably wouldn’t have threatened Jade to begin with. (Or, uh, done something it understood almost everyone else would see as threatening, even if it doesn’t.) So it wouldn’t make sense to blame them for that.

And Bec, well. Bec is an unpredictable threat, and more proactively defensive elements of the goblins would like to do something permanent to him. It’s just that they can’t. So instead they have him stashed on this planetoid in this pocket dimension, which he (hopefully, according to theory and evidence thus far) can’t get out of without their help.

…And alas, Ap-ut will be rescued from Crabdad before any lasting damage can be done. It’s in a hell of a lot of professional trouble, though.

* * *

**fleecy answered your post:  
 how will supplies be handled for the kids in the relocation? will they be able to request new materials, or expected to be self sufficient?**

Supplies will be regularly delivered via the orbital lift. The goblins aren’t expecting them to feed themselves more than a tiny bit from the proposed vegetable garden, plus there’s medical supplies and other things they couldn’t be expected to produce themselves. They’ll be encouraged to try to come up with innovative solutions rather than ask to be given everything they want, but they will be given everything they need.

* * *

Ahahahahaha with both Jade and Eridan wanting rifles to practice with, and Equius wanting an archery range, some goblin on the placement team is feeling very generous and pleased with itself for providing them with a spring-powered projectile launcher which shoots soft darts up to twenty meters! …which is to say, it reinvented the nerf gun and is very proud of itself and sure the kids&trolls will be delighted.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Trolls: have any of you considered trying to split up in your retirement and go to different places?**

Aradia: That depends on what you mean by different places. If you mean split off in completely separate, uh, habitats, then no, not seriously. Sending someone off into isolation with no contact with anyone would just be too cruel, even for, well, you know. And it would be unfair to send any one person off alone with a particularly difficult other person—  
 Terezi: Even Nepeta wants to talk to someone besides Equius now and then—   
Aradia: —so you have to divide into small groups, and you’ll end up separating at least a few people who’d actually like to be in contact. We’re making the current setup work, more or less.  
 Karkat: That said, I was really happy to see the retirement things had enough space everyone wasn’t up each other’s nook all the time. Enough space to fucking avoid each other, that’s what we really need.   
Sollux: Hear, hear.   
Aradia: …

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 I’m really curious about whether or not any of the trolls have thought about ending their “fake” pale relationships once they’re retired. But this is such a large plot point it’ll certainly be addressed, so I worry that I’m just begging for spoilers. Is there any part of the topic you can talk about without rehashing (prehashing?) upcoming material?**

I’m not sure the trolls have really had a chance to think very much about it. Everything’s been happening really fast.  Even in ‘retirement’, Vriska needs to be wrangled for the well-being of the community. That’s basically what Feferi’s moirallegiance was before. Feferi likes the feeling of doing something important, and Vriska is making an effort to reciprocate, although she’s still not very good at it. Vriska is actually quite keen on the idea of someone who gives her positive attention and stops her doing bad things.  Eridan also needs to be wrangled, and neither Karkat nor Kanaya wants to take that on alone. Eridan likes any attention. Gamzee has latched on to the sense of belonging.  Tavros and Terezi might split up, or they might decide it would be too awkward being the only pale singletons and continue on as more-or-less moirails.  The public pale orgies, however, are probably on the way out.

* * *

**Anonymous said:  
**  I’m only asking this anonymously because I don’t have my own tumblr account, but I was just wondering… I get why the goblins wouldn’t want retired subjects like the bugbears reproducing given the fact that, in their case, someone would have to die… but if the human kids and/or trolls wanted to one day have children, would the goblins allow that? Also, are they going to put forth those kismesis courtship guidelines that Yn-yk was considering earlier? By the way, I really love this story.  
Thanks! 

I think if the humans wanted to have children in the future, after they’re at least twenty-five or so and are deemed sufficiently mature, the goblins would still advise against it in the isolated placement, but would acquiesce if the humans persisted.

I don’t know whether it’s possible for trolls to reproduce without the involvement of drones+mother grub, and regardless of the biology I think the trolls are a lot less likely to see having children as a normal thing to do, so — probably not.

Od-ut is almost certainly going to be trying to get infant pixies placed with them in the future, though!

* * *

**Anonymous asked a question:  
 Regarding one of the Close Encounters deleted scenes, how exactly does a ghost throw itself out of a ship anyway?**

I’m not sure, but if I were a laughssassin trapped with a rush of bored pixie ghosts, I’d be motivated to figure it out, too.

(It’s presumably just mind over matter, the same way they walk through walls but don’t fall through the floor. …I guess.)

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Feferi: are you conchtent to go into retirement and live out your nights (hopefully) in peace with your fellow ex-education-subjects, or do you want to be Empress? Or play some role in integrating your people into the Hegemony, if such would be more desirable or realistic?**

Feferi: I don’t know water I want right now. My lusus… I’m taking the goblin medication. Just when it gets really hard to think.  
Feferi: I’d still like to try to help my people more, somehow. I’m just not shore how I’d do it now, even if the goblins let me go.

* * *

**tinyhydra asked you:  
Vriska’s new arm is worrying me for some reason. I can’t help but think it is not going to be content with just looking really creepy and gross and is going to actually do something creepy and gross, perhaps at Vriska’s behest? I dunno. It’s skeeving me out, though.**

Possible spoilers below—  Vriska’s arm is actually creepy and gross in that it is technically a synthetic, symbiotic organism which is maintained by her body and which functions based on signals from her nervous system. Vriska isn’t going to be able to do anything with it but ordinary arm things (and grossing people out). It doesn’t have much of a brain, so it’s not going to go rogue on its own. Things could get (figuratively) sticky if it started following signals from something else, and (literally) sticky if something went wrong and it started growing out of control or trying to spawn miniature baby arms or something, but it’s not supposed to do any of that.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Is there a special reason Vriska is opposed to the bio-implants besides them being super gross?**

Nope. She’s willing to take the arm, even though it is gross and creepy, because she really wants an arm. The idea of the eye was dropped on her without warning. She panicked and reacted inappropriately, as Vriska is wont to do. If the arm works out well, she may be willing to give the eye a second chance, but it isn’t as high a priority unless they’ve actually come up with a Vision Eightfold one (they haven’t).

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Vriska- The current eye socket-imbedded power-suppressing machine thing you got going on makes for a really obvious weak spot, doesn’t it? You aren’t really much of a threat with it on, in a brawl at least, even with your brand new arm, not when one punch to the face can take you down. So, I guess what I’m asking is, wouldn’t getting an organic eye make it a little harder for people to punch you in the brain, even if it is weird and gross?**

Vriska: …Yeah.  
 Vriska: I’d be a lot more worried about it if we were going back to Alternia.   
Vriska: The thing is, uh…   
Vriska: I’m… I’m not saying I shouldn’t have my powers, but I think makes some people feel a lot more comfortable when I can’t use them, and as laaaaaaaame as it is, since we’re all going to be living together, it’s better we’re all comfortable, right? It’s not like I need powers in weird goblin retirement-land!

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
Vriska- So if the goblins could make you an eye with the same or similar suppressive effects, or do the whatever that they did to Tavros and Aradia to cripple their powers, would you take it, or do you think it’s necessary to the people you’re trying to avoid upsetting that there’s a big, obvious, painful looking machine sticking out of your face? I mean, is it important to you that the thing be debilitating in ways outside the shutting down of your powers?**

Vriska: What?! No!   
Vriska: And it isn’t debilitating, I am not debilitated, and I would have done fine in the brawl if fishface hadn’t cheated.   
Vriska: It doesn’t hurt at all if you don’t jar it.   
Vriska: Okay, yeah, some sort of internal thing and no big… thing in my eye socket would be better! But that doesn’t mean I need a weird goblin substitute eyeball, either! Would you want a weird alien eyeball attached directly to your brain?  
Yn-yk: The implant does present a possible entry point for infection, so we will be prompting her to make some sort of decision regarding a replacement.

* * *

**leporidsandphalluses answered your post:  
Aradia, you mentioned that when you were little highblood ghosts would try to make you do things. What kinds of things? Why you specifically?**

Aradia: Well, it wasn’t really me specifically — I think they would have tried the same thing with anyone else who could have heard them. Some of them I’m pretty sure did.  
Aradia: As for what they wanted, it was a mix. Some of them just wanted any lowblood to do what they said, but couldn’t come up with any substantial orders. Others wanted their deaths avenged, or some important task finished — some task they saw as important, at least. The saddest ones were the ones who wanted a message carried to a quadrant, who didn’t seem to realize how long it had been, and that their quadrant had to be dead, too.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Yn-yk: What is your endgame for moirallegiance? You’re obviously comfortable pressuring the trolls to violate traditional boundaries, so do you intend to keep going until the concept effectively disintegrates into more human/goblin-style friendships/support systems, or push pale relationships to evolve until they stabilize into a form that engenders the higher emotions, or what?**

Yn-yk: The trolls have been taught that the higher emotions are only appropriate in quadrant relationships — especially pale, but there are some in the flushed and ashen quadrants and even a few in the pitch. In the long term, they should be free to choose their own romantic relationships, and do not need to have any at all. Their current emphasis on public pale relationships is a useful shortcut toward regular, open expression of higher emotions.

(A lot of what the trolls think the goblins said about moirallegiance, the goblins never actually said; the trolls drew their own conclusions from the goblins’ extremely confusing signals. Obviously the goblins are cool with the pale orgy outcome, but they didn’t think they were demanding it.)

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Yn-yk: If the trolls are still in your charge when they’re old enough that you won’t automatically drop the hammer on any blackrom, how will you handle it?**

Yn-yk: *cringe* Call an expert and hide on the other end of the ship.  
Yn-yk: Seriously, I hope that by that time there will be experts on troll reproductive needs. Were I in charge of it… we would have to set boundaries beforehand — with respect to the degree of violence permitted — and establish a procedure for declaring one’s intentions, to distinguish it from other activities. It would limit spontaneity, which I understand some individuals value highly, but I don’t think a little more planning would really hurt.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Seeing that Jade’s Grandpa would not have gotten killed by Tavros controlling Bec in your Fourth Kind AU, what DID happen to Grandpa? And for that matter what happened to John’s Nanna, assuming the reckoning didn’t happen?**

Uh…

Uhhhhh…

Look! It’s a seagull stealing an ice cream cone!

They were born in 1910, that’s pretty old by 2009 — and there are all sorts of possible accidental deaths. The problem is, Grandpa’s entire life makes absolutely no sense in a Game-less world, and I think — like how Terezi got Vriska’s eye and arm — I’m going to hand-wave it.

Or maybe the goblins’ wormholes are capable of slurping up doomed timelines and incorporating them into their own universe? Yeah, let’s go with that.

* * *

**stanzicapparatireplayers said:  
 Re: Grandpa and Nanna - they were both very old (they were born/their meteors landed in the 1900s), so it’s entirely possible that they just died of old age (or reasons related to that) rather than anything inherently malign. At the point when we see Tavros oops Grandpa Harley, he’s probably well over a hundred years old.**

Meteors landed ~1910, Grandpa died ca. 2000, so “only” about ninety — but yeah, there’s all sorts of non-Tavros-related reasons he could have died. That’s the least of the Grandpa problems. Where’s that seagull-stealing-an-ice-cream-cone picture…


	2. Goblins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q&A and miscellanea. Not as spoileriffic as plot Q&A, but more than a few.

GOBLINS

**EVERYONE IS A RECEIVING EMPATH.** I really can’t emphasize this strongly enough.

—They have a lot of incentive to keep drama and conflict low-key.  
 —If it’s not possible to keep it low-key, they try to end it as soon as they can manage.   
—They see euthanasia as a societal necessity in some cases.   
—They sincerely want to make their subjects as comfortable as possible within the requirements of the program, if only because nobody wants to be feeling their discomfort all the time.

Goblin altruism is… different. Keeping others from suffering isn’t altruistic, it’s just common sense. Hurting yourself unnecessarily is cruel to those around you, so you shouldn’t suffer for someone else unless it leads to the total amount of suffering decreasing (or at least holding steady).

They don’t have a childhood as humans/trolls understand it. They’re nymphs, then they metamorphose and become fully-formed goblins. The vast majority of nymphs are unable to deliberately communicate, and as a rule they aren’t considered quite sentient. There’s also a moderately high attrition rate, which is seen as natural and not something that can or should be changed, or population would be completely out of control. Nymphs accumulate knowledge they retain after metamorphosis, so newly-changed goblins don’t need to learn to talk, read, count or other basic skills — they skip straight to a secondary or post-secondary level, depending on the individual. So, goblins go from non-person to adult all at once, with minimal transition (besides the physical changes).

—They mostly don’t have anything like a recognizable sex drive until the very end of the goblin stage of life, approaching the metamorphosis into a hob. They have romance, hobtrothal, but no sex.  
—They don’t get a second chance at mating. An unsuccessful hob dies.  
—Unlike nymphs, hobs are seen as sentient, but they’re not very communicative and they’re not goblins. Even successful mating is a kind of death.

* * *

**meatsuit asked you:  
 How did Goblins develop their conception of their own superiority when their culture is so hyperfocused on empathy and understanding others? How did they make the leap of logic from “tolerance” to “imperialism”? Anything in their history that contributed to this?**

Goblins have never really been particularly devoted to tolerance. Understanding, yes, because they are all empaths, and there are a lot of differences that don’t bother them enough to require tolerance, but when something is a problem they want to make it stop, as quickly as practical. The generally dominant goblin philosophy is that the ends usually justify the means (but be mindful of unintended ends, too), and ultimately the welfare of the whole is more important than any individual.

I expect way back in the past, the Hegemony’s expansion started something like this: An aggressive civilization decided to attack the ‘peaceful, placid’ goblins, and caused a lot of suffering. The goblins wormhole’d their asses to kingdom come, but then had to decide how to deal with the survivors. They couldn’t just leave them alone; they might come back and try again, so that would be leaving a mess for future generations. They could try to wipe them out completely, but they are people and most of them aren’t particularly bad people, so that should ideally be avoided. They couldn’t move in and conquer in a more traditional way, because that would leave some goblins stranded among a bunch of angry, resentful, generally unhappy aliens. So… they have to make the aliens happy about the situation.

And then this upsets the balance of power in the region and makes their more trigger-happy neighbors nervous, and… repeat.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 What would the goblins do with some alien that passionately hates and rages at them because it feels lots of altruistic empathy for everyone they’ve captured for “education”, regardless of species? An alien that is convinced goblins are evil? Or an alien that’s always despondent for the same reasons? What do goblins do if aliens they kidnap turn suicidal from depression and can’t be snapped out of it? What if they kidnapped someone who had dependents that needed them? Do they ever let people go?**

Lots of questions! :-)  
   
 _What would the goblins do with some alien that passionately hates and rages at them because it feels lots of altruistic empathy for everyone they’ve captured for “education”, regardless of species? An alien that is convinced goblins are evil? Or an alien that’s always despondent for the same reasons?_

—All the education in conduct does include that part about obeying the alien overlords. If the subject believes the goblins are evil, for reasons rooted in higher emotions, but also believes that they need to cooperate because the goblins are the ones with all the power and a war will hurt everyone, then that’s fine. If a subject believes that the goblins should be fought, then that’s not okay no matter why they think it, and they need to be shown that fighting goblins is a bad idea. And it sucks to be the educator in charge of trying to impress that on them (though not as much as it sucks to be them), but the priority is protecting the Hegemony and its protectorates.

_What if they kidnapped someone who had dependents that needed them?_

 —They pick and choose who they take, so they would probably try to avoid that. If they felt it was necessary to take that person, they’d take the dependents, too.

_What do goblins do if aliens they kidnap turn suicidal from depression and can’t be snapped out of it?_

 —They wouldn’t just try “snap out of it”, they’d try some pretty involved treatment, which might include drugs, nymph swarms, changes in environment, finding other people to put them with, and so on. But if they were convinced that the person was never going to get better — euthanasia.

_Do they ever let people go?_

 —Yes. Also, not all education projects involve such blatant kidnapping. A more peaceful annexation would involve more outreach, classes, PSAs, and less snatching people while they’re asleep.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 How do goblins justify kidnapping and mucking about in other cultures that aren’t immediate threats? How do they rationalize that their way must be the best way?**

With the humans, Earth is inside Hegemony territory, and they seem to be heading in the general direction of spaceflight, so the goblins expect to have to deal with them eventually. They were trying to get a head start on the project while they didn’t have anything else on their plates.

They’re happy to allow other people’s ways if said ways are resulting in an acceptably low amount of suffering. That just makes things easier all around.  
(For goblins, trying to minimize the suffering of others is a pragmatic decision, because they’re empaths and feel the suffering of others.)

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 What kinds of things have gotten goblins to kick individuals or species out of their “education” program?**

Most Educators are inclined to dig in their heels and continue to try unless they have a subject they are physically unable to contain or one who is so overpoweringly miserable no empath can stand to go near them. Or if they found one they couldn’t detect any evidence of emotion in, that would probably freak them out, but I’m not sure if it’s happened.

Pixie telekinesis is strong enough in adults that they are effectively uncontainable.

I’m not sure what other big education failures the goblins have had. There have probably been some. Something that insists on seeing other species as prey, maybe? They might find a true hive mind intractable, I’m not sure.

Whatever the kids think, they are definitely showing up on the evaluations as teachable, just not as already taught.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 So, the goblin xenoeducation policy is mostly for the goblins’ benefit but is, at least in theory, intended to be beneficial to the other species, yes? Does that mean the goblins consider themselves protectors? Is there a degree of suffering via war/famine/pestilence that a planet like Earth could experience at which they would step in, even if it didn’t immediately affect them? If Earth were literally under siege by planet fucking Jupiter, would they implode it to prevent human extinction?**

Yes, it’s supposed to be beneficial to other species, too.

How they approach suffering that doesn’t immediately affect them depends on what they think they could do about it, and how much else they have going on at the same time. They’d be unlikely to step in to try to stop any ongoing war on Earth, on the theory that while they would hopefully eventually reduce the total suffering, they’d have to inflict some up close and personal first. They might evacuate defenseless people. Sudden catastrophic famine or pestilence would be more likely to get interfered with.

Jupiter, weirdly, would be easiest of all for them to deal with. I believe it’s goblin policy to provide assistance whenever an inhabited planet is threatened by an asteroid or rogue planet. It’s a straightforward fix (and also a friendly reminder of their power).

* * *

**Anonymous said:  
Do hobs have any special powers? Please correct me if this is wrong, but it seems that nymphs have some type of telempathy and goblins have telempathy (and telepathy?). Would hobs also have telempathy or would their power evolve as they do? Like exchanging telempathy for panempathy, for example?**

Nymphs are projective empaths, but hardly any of them receive (ETA: anything outside their own swarm, inside it’s hard to tell). Goblins are receptive empaths, but hardly any of them can project. Hobs can receive and project, should they choose to, but the biggest difference is that their powers also have physical effects. They have very strong telekinesis, and they’re what’s making the wormholes.

* * *

**asktheoldentrolls said:  
 Okay, I know I’m asking an awful lot of questions, but how exactly is Yn-yk pronounced? Or for that matter, a lot of the Goblin names. My head translates Ap-ut with the a as in talk, and the u as in up, but I don’t know if that’s what you intended?**

Hmm, I’m not sure how to describe how I pronounce Yn-yk. Like inn-ick, but with the vowels forced up and back in my throat? I don’t know if that makes sense. Ap-ut is usually more ah and oot as in foot. Od-ut is ohd, then the same as Ap-ut for the ut. -ys is pronounced roughly eese. And I usually imagine the syllables very clearly delineated, no slurring, you can tell the consonant from the first syllable doesn’t go with the second syllable, and short, no lingering on the vowels.

Of course, chances are quite good there’s some nuance to goblin pronunciation humans can’t even hear. =)

* * *

**asktheoldentrolls answered your post  
 I’m guessing the Goblins must be pretty powerful if they can afford to just hand over a planet to subject aliens? How often does that happen?**

The goblins are pretty powerful, but it’s not exactly a proper planet — it certainly wasn’t inhabitable before they terraformed it, and it may not have been anywhere near where it is now. Its ecosystems outside the domes are minimalist, and the ones inside the domes depend on the powered devices in the domes. Also, they’re only committing one dome of it to the humans and trolls, which is… I don’t know, it’s pretty good-sized, but there’s a lot more planet out there.

This particular planetoid has been used before as a place to stash people out of the way, potentially several groups at once isolated from one another, and when it’s not being used for that its basins-optional-domes system is good for maintaining multiple environments for rare plants and animals.

When it comes to proper planets, they would seldom describe themselves as just handing them over. They would say they are offering their terraforming expertise to make new habitats available.

* * *

**occupationfic asked you:  
Is the way that the Hegemony deals with aliens universally accepted by goblins, or are there extremist goblins who want to do things differently?**

There are opinions all over the place, from “we should all just pack up and move to another dimension so we can protect ourselves without hurting anyone” to “they’re all obnoxious, just kill them all quickly and be done with it”. No one anywhere near power is seriously considering any policy changes, though.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
So what happens if a goblin were to become injured? Would they be immediately carted off by other goblins for medical treatment or do they have some sort of enhanced healing? Or can goblins even become injured?**

They can definitely be injured. They’d probably be whisked off for medical treatment. Their healing is… better is some areas, worse in others, probably? Considering the sort of abuse trolls can survive, they almost certainly aren’t as robust as trolls overall. I’m not sure how they compare to humans.

* * *

**stheere asked you:  
 What do goblins eat? Do they think some things better than others? Do they have chefs?**

Nymphs and hobs are combination carnivores/filter feeders — lots and lots of plankton and the occasional larger animal. Hobs generally avoid anything that reads as a thinking, feeling being to them. Nymphs stick almost entirely to plankton except when they’re devouring a substandard swarm component.  
Diet is broader in the goblin stage, though compressed dehydrated plankton bars are a food staple. They probably do have chefs, though I couldn’t tell you anything more about them right now.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
Do goblins have music or books or tv or any culture like that?**

Yes. A couple of examples have been mentioned; Rose reads Goblin Romeo and Juliet and prefers not to read trashy goblin romances. Dave also recalled finding a booklet with an interspecies porn comic which evidently was considered extremely taboo. There are also books on other themes.

Goblins don’t get as much out of TV equivalents (audiovisual recordings) as many other species do, and they know they don’t, which is why they keep using them as educational tools. Without being able to sense emotions off the people in the recording, everything just seems off. (They also prefer audio-only comms to videophone, and if they’re trying to convey something in-depth would just as soon go to the writing system, which uses extra words/symbols to compensate for the lack of empathy.) Similarly, their recorded music is probably mostly instrumental music, because spoken words are supposed to come with broadcast emotions.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
Do goblins have any kind of religion?**

In the more general sense of religion, yes, probably more than one. It wouldn’t necessarily be immediately recognizable as such. Their religion tends more towards the philosophical than the mystical, probably in part due to their lack of supernatural sensitivity (they can’t see or hear ghosts following them holding a three-ring-circus).

* * *

**Anonymous said:  
 do goblins have anything resembling religion?**

Hmm, let’s see, adding on to that… there’s probably a philosophy that goblins are supposed to seek universal understanding and attempt universal compassion, and another one that because goblins are clearly gifted with superior understanding, it’s their duty to improve other species (coughAp-utcough). Respect for the improbability of life. Veneration of the (largely uncommunicated) wisdom of hobs, that’s close to religion as humans practice it.  
There’s also a widespread belief that it’s selfish to refuse to do what is necessary because of personal squeamishness.

* * *

**Anonymous said:  
 How do the goblins euthanize unteachable subjects?**

They start out with an instant-knockout sedative, after which it doesn’t much matter to the subject. After that it varies according to the circumstance.

  Goblins like to do things chemically, so a fast-acting toxin is pretty common. For more chemically resilient species, decapitation or electrocution, disintegration — the possibilities are endless. They focus on ‘fast’, though.

Body disposal also varies widely. Honoring the funerary customs of the species in question isn’t unheard of, but it’s more common for the remains to be disintegrated or else recycled with other organic waste. Harvesting the body for spare parts is frowned upon, as it’s felt allowing this to become customary might encourage questionable evaluations.

* * *

**Anonymous said:  
 If the goblins were to find a species of aliens headed towards spaceflight that suffered from goblin intervention, what would they do? Would they leave them alone?**

Do you mean one that would suffer from goblin intervention? That’s more or less what they’re doing with Earth at the moment.

I’m not sure I understand the question?

* * *

**Anonymous said:  
Sorry, I wasn’t sure how to word that question myself. I meant to say: what if the goblins found another species heading towards spaceflight, but when they tried to involve themselves, they found that the aliens suffering because of them. Would they step off and leave said species alone?**

Ah, I get it.

If goblins start interfering not expecting suffering to result, and then there is suffering, the preliminary Evaluators did not do their jobs. Any suffering should not be a surprise.

The goblins would prefer to avoid involving themselves in situations where they would cause suffering, and if they unexpectedly find themselves in such a situation, they would prefer to leave ASAP. However, there are some situations in which it would be irresponsible to do so:

—If suddenly pulling out would cause even more problems.  
 —If leaving the species uneducated would be a problem for everyone else a few years down the road (imagine just pre-spaceflight Alternia).

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
What if goblins ever encountered a creature with abilities kinda like Vriska’s, but amped up and slightly different - like it could use their own empath powers to hijack their emotions and make them feel intense and uncontrolled anger/hate/negative emotions?**

~~NUKE IT FROM ORBIT!!!!!!~~

It depends on their range, their general temperament, their control over the ability, how important the ability is to their normal function, their level of technology, their cultural mores, their effect on other Hegemony species, etc. Goblins can shut down telepathy/telempathy with a suppressant implant, so telempath species wouldn’t necessarily pose the same containment problem as mature pixies. The goblins would probably prefer that all such abilities be shut down when the telempath species was anywhere near goblins, but that could be negotiable if the civilizations were meeting amicably.

A hostile species with a long-range (i.e. interstellar) emotional manipulation ability would be seen as a significant threat, and the Educators would have to come up with a broad plan of action very quickly to stave off the NUKE IT FROM ORBIT option. (Something along the lines of ‘open a wormhole into the middle of their home planet and use the superheated core to smash their fleets while the planet implodes’, that sort of thing.)

If you mean as individuals rather than as a civilization, I’m not sure. Goblins are accustomed to keeping emotions low-key, I don’t know what would happen if they were artificially elevated. They definitely wouldn’t be happy about it. Making your enemies feel uncontrolled anger/hate doesn’t seem like a very good survival strategy?

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 if for some reason a hob and a nymph swarm were kept in the same tank, would the nymph swarm’s happy radiation help the hob avoid hobsplosion? or would the nymphs obliviously eat the hob or something?**

The hob might get a minor mood boost from the nymphs, but they’re good at telling where feelings are coming from, and it wouldn’t solve anything if things were really falling apart. It could delay things, maybe? But it wouldn’t do much.

The nymph swarm could not eat the hob. It probably wouldn’t try, but if it did, the hob could swat it off without even trying.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
Do goblins have a problem with interspecies romance in general or just goblin romance with members of other species?**

Ah, someone caught that. :) It’s only goblins, and it’s not romance that’s the problem — it’s sex.

There are probably some controversial novels and/or a biography or two about goblins who fell in love with non-goblins and preferred to live and die with them and even engaged in sexual activity — alien sexual activity, not goblin sex.

Goblins have sex once in their lives. If it goes badly, they die immediately. If it goes well, they’re permanently changed and lose all personal autonomy. If the combination of participants isn’t viable, they die soon. Having sex for fun makes about as much sense to them as childbirth for fun makes to us.

There’s fiction about goblins undertaking metamorphosis with groups known or strongly suspected not to be viable, some of it critically acclaimed and the sort of thing they dissect endlessly in goblin Literary Analysis.

The enormously embarrassing comic involved nonviable metamorphosis, so it had to be either arty/profound or deviant — or both. Not something you’d want to show to the presumably impressionable subjects.

* * *

**strikeslip replied to your post:  
imagining metamorphosis with non-goblin participants is their version of m-preg. That’s kind of awesome.**

…Imagining a viable hob with non-goblin components would be very much like mpreg, I hadn’t thought of that. =D

Just plain metamorphosis with non-goblin participants, with no magical creation of a viable hob, is… I would consider it more extreme? Somebody dies.

* * *

**strikeslip replied to your post  
Is having other viable participants not a requirement for the metamorphosis to happen? So it’s like… pollination or something? Psychic spores? But then how do they become one entity?**

Metamorphosis shouldn’t occur unless there are multiple goblins producing the correct pheromones. But occasionally the body gets confused about what signals it’s receiving, or there are also synthetic chemicals to trigger it artificially.

The result of a solo metamorphosis is… part of a hob.

The details are probably (a) gross and (b) biologically nonsensical, so I’m not going to try to flesh them out any more. :)

* * *

**Anonymous said:  
Since reproductive activity is a final commitment for goblins, and cannot be casually undertaken, what sort of physical affection and intimacy, if any, do hobtrothed groups engage in?**

There is definitely physical touching and closeness, but I haven’t come up with anything more concrete than that. Sorry.

* * *

**manyblinkinglights asked you:  
I remember you going into some stuff that could destabilize hobs before, but would having one or two personalities subservient to a stronger one be intrinsically destabilizing? Is classically absolute “balance” the only long-lasting way to glue a hob together?**

As long as all three of them are happy with the situation, that would be fine. Any one of them wanting to leave could kill it. (It may be slightly more complicated than this — hobs tend not to talk about their… intrarelationships? — but this is the gist of it.)

Three is considered the absolute minimum for a viable hob. Goblin hobtrothal counselors would suggest getting a few other people in with the ability to at least provide a metaphorical counterpoint. If no one else can be convinced it’s a good idea, well, you can see how long you last with three, but the counselor advises that maybe you should take another look at your approach to interpersonal relationships.

…Ap-ut’s too young to have gotten this lecture yet, but I think it can look forward to something similar!

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
In what situations would chemicals be deliberately used to trigger premature or solo metamorphosis? (I’m assuming either of those scenarios is most likely lethal to all involved parties.)**

The catalysts have a legitimate medical use when some members of a hobtrothal are of age but having trouble getting things started. Or if there’s a major age difference among the hobtrothed and some wouldn’t be able to survive long enough for all the others to reach natural metamorphosis age, they could apply for inducement.

Beyond that, I don’t think there’s anything legal. These are very, very controlled substances.

In fiction, they usually show up as a particularly grotesque form of murder or suicide (or worst, murder-suicide).

(Or-om and Ul-et, which Rose was reading early on, features the foolish protagonists prematurely catalyzing themselves into a weak, soon-deceased hob because they don’t think they’ll be allowed to be together and will never find anyone else they can be with.)

* * *

**stheere asked you:  
Can you have a Goblin with a pain kink? Would that be seen as suuuuuuuper kinky and trangsressive? Is there a S/m or D/s subculture? If not, do they have Opinions on the human versions of these subcultures?**

Not in the same way humans do, because goblins generally don’t have a sex drive for most of their lives — a non-metamorphosis-ready goblin with a sex drive is already considered to have a serious and potentially life-threatening health problem.

If we look at the non-sexual sense of sadism and masochism, that is definitely seen as transgressive, because you can’t really be one without being both. There are sometimes small communities of goblins who prefer suffering to not suffering, and they freak everyone else out.

Their perspective on the human s/m subculture is initially puzzlement that they can go on and function normally in human society the rest of the time — but it turns out that behavior is tied into the reproductive drive somehow, and you can’t expect other species’ reproductive behavior to make any kind of sense by goblin standards.

* * *

**stheere asked you:  
Yn-yk, are there Goblins without empath abilities, kind of like we have blind people? Do they still fit into Goblin society somehow? Any recorded cases of some eventually becoming hobs?**

Yn-yk: Yes. A few.  
 Yn-yk: Nymphs with no empathic abilities… I can’t say that there has never been a case of one surviving, but it seems highly unlikely and I’ve never heard of one. But there are some individuals who went from normal nymph to empathy-blind goblin, or who suffered brain damage as goblins.   
Yn-yk: Several assist in testing trainee educators in communicating effectively with individuals without empathic senses.  
 Yn-yk: There’s no reason they can’t become hobs. My first instructor in facial expression metamorphosed with four others, one of them empathy-blind.

* * *

**soulsuckingisaacnewton asked you:  
Those last two questions made me wonder: are there goblins that we would call sociopathic? Ones without the ability to feel compassion for other beings? Would having the empathic sense mitigate or cancel out this condition?**

Hmm. That is a very good question and I am going to have to think about it.

There are goblins who want to just do whatever the fuck they want regardless of the consequences for anyone else, but since consequences that include suffering for nearby people are also consequences for them, they’re less likely to want to do that.

Their collection of personality disorders is probably pretty different from ours, though, both because of the empathy and because of the different priorities emphasized…

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 Are the “reflection chambers” something the goblins ever use themselves, voluntarily, as a form of meditation or something like that? Or is it onsidered a punishment among them, too? Or do they just never use them for their own species?**

Among goblins, they are more likely to be used as meditation aids or in therapy. They may occasionally be used as time-out chambers.

On their own, the reflection chambers don’t block empathy, so they aren’t as isolating for goblins as they are for non-telepaths.

* * *

**stheere asked you:  
 What do Goblins think about Troll auspisticism? Especially considering that it involves having a third person involved to stabilise a relationship between two (and all parties are cool with that), it’s a romantic, serious, long-term thing, BUT there’s no sex/reproduction involved?**

They think it’s great, as far as it goes. As with moirallegiance, though, they don’t think the trolls should be limiting the emotions involved in auspisticism to an exclusive relationship.

* * *

**Anonymous asked a question  
Who gives a goblin its name? What are the parameters for naming?**

Some of them at least name themselves upon metamorphosing into goblins from nymphs. If they can’t come up with anything in a reasonable length of time the supervisors probably have a list to pull names off of.

The form for names is vowel-consonant-hyphen-vowel-consonant. :)

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
 But what if a goblin named Et-Al wanted to be first author on a paper with multiple authors? D:**

LOL well done, anon, well done.

Although surely last author would be a bigger problem, since it would give the impression there were more authors unlisted.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
This is a bit out there, but what do you suppose Beforus-verse goblins are like? Are they… horribly UNpragmatic somehow?**

I think if goblins had a Beforus-verse equivalent, it would be one where they never got into that first war, and are still living peacefully as that one weird species full of empaths with the nymph swarms and the hob-things and yeah, they’re just really weird.

They would still have a moral philosophy that doesn’t prioritize the individual; I don’t know whether they’d be very different in ends vs. means. But they wouldn’t be trying to nanny-police the rest of the galaxy about it.

* * *

**sarapsys asked you:  
 so questions then - what is the goblins’ native habitat like? and also, what do they use their horns for? they don’t seem the type to use them aggressively, are they they kinda like receivers or something?**

They evolved from marine lifeforms, and hobs still do best in water, though they can survive in air indefinitely. Their home planet has a lot of shallow sea, small island chains, and large areas which depend on the tides. Goblins don’t have gills, but using some other gas exchange method can breathe underwater unassisted on their home planet; in other seas with different chemistry they usually play it safe and use a gas mask.

The horns can serve as amplifiers for broadcast of one’s emotions, especially underwater, but the difference is minor enough that at this point they don’t have much practical purpose. A goblin with an unusually large horn is stereotypically seen as more honest, though.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:  
You mentioned that goblins link having large horns with honesty, did that factor into Tavros being their favorite? Like did they go in with the preconception that Tav would be more honest? Or are they more practical than that?**

I don’t want to say no one ever thought about it, but mostly, no, it didn’t factor in. The large horns —> honesty thing is known to be mostly a myth even among goblins, sort of like how stereotypically, humans associate wearing glasses with intelligence? Even if it was really a thing with goblins, goblins trained to work with other species are supposed to keep in mind that physical cues don’t always translate exactly.

Plus, he has _two of them_! On the _sides of his head_! Creepy.

I suspect that goblin horns don’t meet the biological/anatomical definition of horns, but I haven’t completely decided what they are instead. (But definitely not antlers.)

* * *

**Anonymous asked:  
 What exactly do the mindfuckacoons do, and what are they *meant* to do? (I ask because the goblins seem to believe that being thrown in a mindfuckacoon is meant to help change the subjects’ attitudes or something, even though it clearly isn’t.)**

Most literally, mindfuckacoons are sensory deprivation tanks. They’re soundproof with sound-dampening acoustics, odor-neutralizing, have the subject floating in a numbing gel, etc.

Reflection chambers are, on the one hand, supposed to provide the subject with a neutral environment and a distraction-free opportunity to Think About What They’ve Done. This is what they would tell subjects the tanks are for if they asked.

On the other hand, the goblins are perfectly well aware that forced sensory deprivation is really not fun for most species, so the tanks are frequently used as punishment, with the idea that the subject will modify their behavior to keep from undergoing the tank again. (It’s like a beating, but not overtly violent and with an alleged therapeutic purpose.) They’re also used to soften up subjects undergoing disorientation conditioning, which is why most of the trolls spent so much time in them at the start.

* * *

**asktheoldentrolls said:  
So a cherub problem was mentioned early on. Just how much trouble do the goblins have with those giant space snakes?**

Yeah, I actually changed my mind about that — I believe in the AO3 version, that line refers to pixies, but I can’t edit anon dreamwidth posts, so…

They’d drive the goblins to distraction, though, if they did interact. Half of them are about as ineducable as anything could possibly get, the other half are made of higher emotions, and you can’t get rid of just the bad ones because they’re needed for reproduction.

* * *

It occurs to me that while VERBALLY goblins call everyone and everything “it”, that’s because nuance is added though the empathy. So, in written Ottrian, you probably see “it*” (a person), “it#” (an inanimate object), “it•” (a sentient but nonsapient lifeform), “it^” (a person I don’t think very highly of), et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

Gender, if applicable, is still relegated to adjectives or loan-words, because it’s an alien and unimportant concept.


	3. Other original species

OTHER ORIGINAL SPECIES

**asktheoldentrolls answered your post** **  
** **Are there any aliens you’ve designed but that haven’t come up in-story yet?**

Yes and no. I have some vague brainstorming about aliens the goblins tangled with in the past, maybe something with an intractable hive mind, but I don’t think it’s likely to show up. And I still want to make up some sort of anaerobic sapient slime mold, but that still seems a little complicated to fit into the story. Dryads have come up, but not in any great detail — they’re the orange hairy ones. I haven’t given (and haven’t come up with) much detail about selkies, either, apart from their being from a recently contacted world.

Goblins, pixies, and to some extent bugbears had a narrative role before I made them up — goblins were the alien abductors and educators, pixies were the perennially intractable educate-ees, and bugbears produce chestburster offspring they used to routinely implant in each other. All the others came from needing to mention some other species in Hegemony control and initially only had a name (gremlins, selkies) or a very brief description (Knuckers, dryads).

* * *

PIXIES!

The species the goblins haven’t managed to educate or exterminate, despite extensive efforts.

(Uh, not simultaneous efforts. They kind of alternate.)  
  
—Big range in size, but overall small — probably never more than about 1.5 meters in height.  
—Skin, hair, wings, and eyes are brightly colored and varying, internal tissue a lot more mundane.  
—Proportions and facial features are similar to humans/trolls.  
—Insectoid-ish wings and antennae.  
—They’re all telekinetic to varying extents, and use it to function normally: most of their wings are just decorative without the telekinesis, and they are not physically strong.  
—As a general rule, size and telekinetic strength are inversely proportional.  
—Reproduction on the reptile/bird model, seldom more than 1-2 eggs at a time, most commonly identical twins.  
—Two sexes, relatively rigid roles when it comes to rearing offspring. The lack of social interaction makes it mostly a moot point outside that.  
—Females are larger, and this is an exception to the size-power rule — they’re almost always telekinetically stronger than males of the same size.

Have any questions about pixies?

* * *

**asukaskerian answered your[ question](http://ceescedasticity.tumblr.com/post/76125446877/pixies):[ _Pixies!_](http://ceescedasticity.tumblr.com/post/76125446877/pixies)  
are they all “evil”? or at least highly destructive and unfriendly?**

At the moment, there is no functioning, sustainable pixie subculture not based on smash-and-grab of other people’s stuff. On an individual level, there are pixies that aren’t malicious, that are curious about other species, that would rather eat popcorn and watch TV than kill people and take their stuff. Od-ut would argue vehemently that a number of its past subjects were friendly and only a little bit destructive and the Threat Evaluators were overreacting. It’s just that when push comes to shove, they’re not a social species and they’re wired to take what they want and fuck everyone else; they’re strong enough that they can cause a lot of trouble when they try to do it.

There’s a known exception to this which is going to be discussed in more detail in-story, but it boils down to: there are pixies out there who can function acceptably in non-pixie culture, but they don’t really know how to be pixies.

ETA: Pretty much all the adults are highly unfriendly to goblins, but under the circumstances you can’t really blame them.

* * *

**manyblinkinglights answered your question:  
They got spaceflight?**

Short version: Yes.

Long version: They didn’t develop it on their own. On their home planet they had a low level of technology and minimal agriculture — they couldn’t stand each other long enough to work together developing it. (They did work together long enough to wipe out their few large predators.) They’d filled up all the good territory and all the iffy territory when some explorers stopped by, thus giving the pixies the information that there’s other territory out there.

They sometimes steal and operate other people’s ships. More often, a ‘rush’ will occupy a ship and not so much operate it as fling it around with their collective telekinesis. If you actually get a group with some discipline, they can do it without a ship.

* * *

Softer side of pixies:

Mostly pixies hate each other. They _don’t_ hate, and try to avoid killing, the parent who raised them (almost always the mother), offspring they themselves raised, or surviving twins/clutchmates. (They try to avoid killing their own offspring even if they didn’t raise them, but they can’t always identify them. And killing your siblings from other clutches might upset Mom, so they try to avoid that, too. When practical.)

* * *

Pixies don’t generally mention sex unless it’s relevant — breeding season. Otherwise it doesn’t matter. So, like goblins, their language doesn’t have gendered pronouns.

What they do have pronouns for is distinction between people whose lives they value and people they don’t give a crap about/want to kill. Usually, _it_ applied to a person is equivalent to the indifferent-hostile pronoun. (I think in that dialogue I put up earlier, Medeesee should actually have been calling Od-ut _she_.)

Inamoration is intention to mate — one’s inamorata/inamorato is the object of one’s intentions. (Followed by flashy mating display or combat with other suitors.) It only comes up in breeding season.

In the medical chamber, Medeesee got mad when Shedemee said he had an inamorata because he doesn’t, he can’t (he’s not quite old enough), and he never will (being dead). Plus, Rodanah, the implied inamorata, also died too young, a little younger than Medeesee even, and so obviously is not in breeding season. Inamoration with someone not in season is _sick and wrong_.

* * *

**asktheoldentrolls said:** **  
** **What exactly is a Pixie Rush?**

Pixies aren’t a social species, but sometimes they have to work together to accomplish things — like get from planet to planet, or onto a ship. A rush is usually a big group of pixies flinging itself around, often through space, with telekinesis. A rush going planet to planet is a colonization party; a rush onto a ship is a raiding party.

* * *

**Anon also asked:** **  
** **Also, how do they think they’re going to educate the pixies if they keep killing all of them? Do they really not understand that their actions make their ‘subjects’ angry, resentful and depressed?**

The pixie situation goes in cycles. The goblins collect some pixie subjects and spend a while — years — attempting to educate them. The project is scrapped when the subjects get old enough to develop unstoppable-to-goblins telekinesis and still aren’t satisfying the Threat Evaluators. The subjects are euthanized.

The Threat Evaluators say that pixies need to be eliminated, because they’re dangerous, they prey on everyone else, and they’re not wired for empathy — not their fault, but they’re not going to get better and the problem needs to be solved. The pixie colony which sparked the whole thing is targeted for elimination, much to the relief of the nearest non-pixies who were fighting them off in the meantime. Some of the pixies escape, because adults always have an escape route.

Another few populations of pixies might be eliminated-except-for-escapees. Then the Educators point out examples of ‘imprinted’ pixies living integrated into communities of client species, so no they don’t have to be that way, so the goblins should try to educate them instead of killing them all.

The situation is ridiculous and everyone knows it’s ridiculous, but they don’t know what else to do.

As for the other question — they do realize that? They consider it regrettable, but not really a factor.

* * *

…Have I ever actually mentioned that pixies have no nudity taboo or external genitalia? That’s a thing. They will wear clothes in climates where they need the extra insulation, but they default to running around naked. Most of the dead pixies will occasionally imagine themselves wearing clothes, but Ippix and Medeesee are the only ones who do it consistently — Ippix was raised by bugbears, who do have a nudity taboo, and Medeesee wants to separate himself from other pixies however he can. (Ippix ‘wears’ goblin-style clothing because fuck those bugbears anyway, and Medeesee ‘wears’ a project-subject shift because that’s the only clothes he ever spent much time in.)

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:** **  
** **Maybe they could ask Medeesee about pixie culture. That is, if pixies have made anything like art or music in between raiding and stealing, that is.**

Not sure whether there’s going to be a good place for someone to ask this, but since you mention it:

Pixies don’t have a written language, but they do tell stories. Most stories are passed from dam to offspring, and there’s not much cross-pollination, so there’s a lot of divergence in details and even main points. Same for music — except for territorial calls and inamoration calls, those tend to be pretty consistent.

Facetiously speaking, pixies like shiny object and other visually interesting things. They decorate their homes and make ornaments for their bodies. They generally assemble these artworks out of things they found or stole.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:** **  
** **What are bugbear elect?**

Bugbears have six biological sexes: Elect, Trino, Muo, Muino, Tau, Antit. (I named them after the six kinds of [leptons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepton), except for some reason I mixed up the name of the Tau particle’s neutrino with its antimatter counterpart, even though it should have been blatantly obvious from, you know, the _anti_.) Elect was traditionally the most dominant of these sexes, with Antit and Tau at the bottom. Tau was _especially_ at the bottom, because they tend to have higher mass than Antit, and so made better breedhosts.

Premodern bugbears used large animals from their home planet as breedhosts, but then they accidentally used them to extinction. Then they used each other until they encountered other species, at which point they started using them, except for those who insisted bugbear breedhosts produced superior offspring.

The goblins weren’t having any of that, of course. Their attempts at synthetic, entirely nonliving breedhosts did not turn out well, so they designed some large, extremely stupid animals which didn’t feel fear or pain. The bugbear colony near which Medeesee hatched was a center for these custom breedhosts. The pixie rush was hunting them, because animals which don’t feel fear or pain are super easy to hunt, and the ones already infested with bugbear offspring were even easier to hunt! The bugbears were really not happy about this.

* * *

**blacksusanseyes said:** **  
** **Can you describe in detail what bugbears look like?**

John’s initial take on bugbears in an educational video:  
~~~  
The aliens in this video are _especially_ weird. They have kind of human-like — goblin-like, whatever — faces — okay, maybe slightly more human-like, because they have no horns and some kind of hair. Whatever. Their _relatively_ unremarkable heads are attached to sort of horizontal bodies with way too many legs. They’re a little like giant spiders, except some of the legs have hands on the end, and instead of being at one end of the body, the head _somehow_ can move all over.  
~~~

Typical adult size varies by sex. I think (right now) most of them are between six and eight feet tall. They can retract their heads into their bodies for protection, but that makes it really hard to communicate and limits sensory input, so most prefer not to. They usually don’t do clothes. Pigmentation is less varied than pixies, probably more varied than goblins.

<p>Here is a stylized bugbear draft:  


(The legs that have hands on the ends aren't pictured.)

* * *

**Sorry, bugbear**

Not only are you pretty much last in the Hegemony-protectorate cuteness pageant, I forgot I said you guys had nudity taboos. Is this better?

Ahahaha, the bugbear is not placated by their new crappy poncho. Perhaps they're considering how entirely impractical it would be if walking on the walls or ceiling.

Maybe the bugbears who are culturally the most strongly encouraged to wear clothes are also supposed to stay on the floor because walking on the walls or ceiling is, like, not demure. Man, it sucks to be you, bugbear.

Oh, I know who you are. You're the Antit protagonist of that educational video the kids watched about letting people make their own choices. And your name is... um... sSarriln, let's go with that.

* * *

**theplushfrog said:** **  
** **Bugbears - What if they use a kind of spray-on clothing or that their nudity taboo is actually about having a way to hide their head without blocking out sensory info? Like it’s super nsfw to show the socket their neck can retact into—or that different genders have different kinds of nudity taboos? So perhaps some genders are forced by the kinds of clothing they wear to stay rightsideup.**

Ooooohhh. *thinky thoughts*

I think the different genders do have different nudity taboos.

I bet some of the more over-the-top clothing is meant to conceal whether or not the wearer has the head retracted.

* * *

**Gremlin**

As long as I'm sharing my draft visual aids, here's a gremlin--

The whiskers need work.

* * *

**Anonymous said:** **  
** **Can you tell us more about Knuckers? What they look like, how their society works, how being educated by the goblins worked out for them, what their culture’s like, their physiology?**

Let’s see — Knuckers…

—They’re scaly, kinda reptilian, and very skinny — “spindly” or “stick-like” have been mentioned. The ones that have been described have blue-green scales over most of their bodies, and yellow-orange on their hands and faces. There’s some color variation between individuals, but nothing like pixies have.  
—They don’t usually wear clothes, except for belts for carrying things, and protective gear as necessary. They do use a lot of body paint.  
—They live in colonies of a couple dozen related and unrelated individuals, in which there will be only one breeding pair at any one time. There is a delicate and complicated social routine to determine who goes in the breeding pair. They have clutches of 6-10 eggs. Infant mortality is comparable to humans (there is some, but less now that they have modern medicine, and they invest in the offspring expecting them to survive).  
—They suck at fighting. They aren’t as fragile as they look, but they’re still pretty fragile. The punch in the three-Knucker sharing video wasn’t as crappily staged as the trolls thought it was, because by troll standards real Knucker punches are crappy and halfhearted.  
—They were really, really happy when they goblins took over protecting them from all those terrifyingly durable species that run around smashing things all the time.  
—A pixie rush + Knucker settlement always ends really badly. The pixies don’t even mean to leave such a high body count, but they always do.

* * *

**Anonymous said:** **  
** **Have the goblins ever met a species they didn’t feel the need to educate? Do they educate every species they collect a sample from?**

To the first, yes — any species minding its own business and not being awful to its own people in the goblins’ faces. I think the Knuckers didn’t get a lot of Education.

To the second, they usually don’t collect samples if they don’t think some sort of education is necessary, and it’s not likely they’d think that if there’s no call for it at all. It’s possible they’ve collected subjects from somewhere and then decided hardly any education is necessary. On the other extreme, as with the pixies (partially), sometimes subjects are examined and a species is judged ineducable.


	4. Original Characters

**fleecy replied to your text post** **  
** **lanthy, besides your dam who is your FAVORITE**

Either Gamzee or — after she starts flying more — Tinkerbull. Gamzee is usually the substitute wiggler-holder when Eridan’s busy, and has very yankable hair and will say “honk” when she grabs his nose. Tinkerbull is much closer to her size and has wings just like her and is probably a nestmate or something. Karkat and Kanaya are after that — familiar enough to be trusted even when wearing blue!

Right now her vocabulary is still just “fuck”, but in a few months she’ll have added “Erdam”, “Gee”, “Kah” (which seems to mean either Karkat or Kanaya), “no”, “mine”, and “Ting” (Tinkerbull). At which time she would be able to answer your question herself: “Erdam mine Gee mine Ting mine Kah mine fuck fuck!”

* * *

**stheere asked you:** **  
** **Ap-ut, what do you like about your job? Why did you choose this profession over others? What is the definition of a empath-evaluator? What is a successful one supposed to do? Er-ys, do you dis/agree?**

**Ap-ut:** I like finding hidden things and solving puzzles.  
**Er-ys:** It also likes proving others wrong. It won’t willingly admit it, but it doesn’t deny it, either.  
**Ap-ut:** I chose this profession because I am a very sensitive empath, and Xenoevaluation requires great sensitivity and skill.  
**Er-ys:** Also Endoevaluation calls for somewhat more tact.  
**Ap-ut:** A Xenoevaluator detects, identifies, and interprets the emotions and, when possible, thoughts of non-goblins, particularly those of subjects in educational or rehabilitative contexts, and predicts their responses to possible stimuli. A successful one is correct.  
**Er-ys:** It’s… not wrong, in general? It’s just very quick to assume it’s right about specifics.

* * *

**soulsuckingisaacnewton asked you:** **  
** **Asked this question a while ago, I think maybe your inbox ate it: Who does Ap-ut look up to? Is there anyone from whom it would willingly accept advice or contradiction, or who it would trust to be more knowledgeable than itself?**

Hmm… it probably has some mentors/instructors it respects. It has superiors whose opinions it has to go along with whatever it thinks.

But mostly it thinks it’s the best thing since sliced bread, and other people can’t keep up with it. (Like the Dr. House analogy.)

**Edit:** It doesn’t think it’s an expert in all fields, and would accept the advice of an expert in engineering, physical medicine, botany, geology, ecology, astronomy, a lot of the hard sciences.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:** **  
** **Do you think Ap-ut would be able to take a joke? Even a light joke that’s obviously a joke and not at all intended to be hurtful?**

The goblin sense of humor doesn’t line up very well with the human sense of humor. (I’m sure the goblins have something of the sort, but I’m not sure what it is.) Ap-ut would certainly be able to distinguish between a malicious and non-malicious joke (in exacting degrees of any-trace-of-anything-resembling-malice), and would tailor its response accordingly, but it would not be amused.

* * *

**reallyssa asked you:** **  
** **Does Ap-ut not understand that sometimes people can’t control whether they repress their emotions? It’s a coping mechanism a lot of the time and not conscious. It seems unreasonable for it to get mad at the kids for that. :(**

It is unreasonable, and technically, Ap-ut isn’t _punishing_ anyone because their emotions are repressed. The sensory deprivation or drugging is supposed to facilitate processing and breaking down the repressed emotions (and since the repressed emotions are usually negative, they ‘need’ processing and breaking down).

But Ap-ut is always, uh, dissatisfied, disappointed, and displeased when subjects aren’t completely open, so it comes off as punishing them because it’s angry.

* * *

**sabakunogaaraai asked you:** **  
** **i’ve got a question: OMFG WTF is WRONG with ap-ut?**

I don’t know, someone should probably send it to the endoevaluators. =D

But seriously:

Ap-ut is “usually dissatisfied, sometimes disappointed or displeased, and _always_ convinced it is right”.  
  
—It has a very high opinion of itself and its abilities.  
——It thinks it knows better than everyone else.  
——It really resents people not according it the respect it believes it deserves.  
—It _is_ an especially sensitive empath, and can sense things that others can’t. (It worked out how the trolls were reacting to the fussy baby treatment before anyone else did; it can sense repressed emotions; it’s better at deciphering the thoughts coming with emotions. It gets a lot closer to telepathy than most goblins.)  
——Its abilities also prompted it to develop a better than average ability to tolerate/detach from/shield against others’ emotions, so causing suffering in others won’t necessarily cause it suffering.  
——Because it _can_ pick out every little Issue, it feels smug about doing so.

* * *

**stheere asked you:** **  
** **Od-ut, do you know Ap-ut well? Any opinions of it? Do you know how the others respond to it? Gimme all the good gossip *eybrows* =)**

Od-ut: Not well, no. We only met recently, when I was transferred here for the troll project. I was on pixie projects, and it was on the human project for some time.   
Od-ut: Rumor is such a sensitive evaluator was put on such a low-priority project because anything it decided about the humans wouldn’t immediately be inflicted on a large population.   
Od-ut: I wouldn’t want it on a project I was running — not that that’s going to happen. Maybe call it in for consultation if someone could sit on it every nanosecond.  
Od-ut: I’ve worked with many evaluators, and all of them can be very annoying in their insistence that they understand the subjects more than we do, even when they’ve only just come onto a project and have spent hardly any time with them. Yes, they have special training and sensitive empathy. No, that shouldn’t replace getting to know the subjects.  
Od-ut: I believe Ap-ut is the first one I’ve met who inspires that frustration even in other evaluators.

* * *

**stheere asked you:** **  
** **Soooooo Ap-ut, how is your romantic life? Ever considered entering a hobtrothal with anyone before? ;))**

Ap-ut: …  
Ap-ut: I am very busy with my work and don’t have time to pursue relationships. I have responsibilities.  
Ap-ut: At my age a hobtrothal is a lot of emotional trial and error which will probably change beyond recognition before metamorphosis.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:** **  
** **Kankri vs Ap-ut, contest of insufferable smugness, battle for the ages**

I don’t know who’d win, but it wouldn’t be an indefinite standoff — one of them would crack:  
—I’d say there would be a nonzero chance of Kankri cracking after Ap-ut zeroed in on some of the baggage he has to be repressing.  
—If not, Ap-ut would get really, _really_ pissed off I mean dissatisfied, disappointed, and displeased at Kankri’s repression and refusal to acknowledge or _properly_ deal with his emotions.

* * *

**lunarcress asked you:** **  
** **Ap-ut vs. Kankri is well and fun, but what about vs Aranea? Battle of the smug empaths who know better than you and is only doing this for the ‘greater good’ with possible persecution complexes due to seeing first hand how everyone thinks you’re insufferable. God help us all if they decided to team up.**

Their teaming up would be a big problem. They’re both empaths, but Aranea is also a coercive telepath, and Ap-ut would have a lot of ideas about how that could be used. And once they were working together, Aranea would probably go along with all of it, no questions asked.

But I don’t think they would team up. I see Aranea as deeply, deeply fucked up. Someone who can latch onto the Sufferer as a religious figure (having actually grown up in the mystical utopia he was inspired by) and then turn around and make herself over as Mindfang Mark II is not a rational and well-adjusted person. (And I have very low expectations for her higher emotions.) Given the opportunity, Ap-ut would probably consider her a prime candidate for psychic surgery, or at the very least a suppressant implant and a nice long stint in a mindfuckacoon.

* * *

**Anonymous asked you:** **  
** **From what you’ve showed us, Medeesee sounds intelligent, reasonable and generally quite a civilised being- so why on earth would the goblins kill it, or did it die of some other cause?**

**Od-ut:** That’s what _I_ said!  
  
Medeesee got in trouble for inadequate empathy. The rest of the pixies in his cohort were being terminated for being violent and unteachable, and he didn’t care.

**Od-ut:** He didn’t connect with them. That doesn’t mean he could never have connected with anyone! He understood he needed to be cooperative and nonviolent, we could have given him a chance somewhere else!

Both Medeesee and Shedemee lost their clutchmates prior to intake, and the goblins fostered them together in an attempt to cultivate that non-hostile sibling bond. Shedemee latched on; Medeesee didn’t.

**Od-ut:** Not reciprocating affinity is not an offense. Medeesee did everything that was required of him.

He also felt only indifference to the thought of the elimination of the pixie colony he came from (the goblins ordering it regretted it more than he did).

**Od-ut:** Yes, but all the bugbears on the planet regretted it less! “No one likes pixies”, and we blame the subjects for picking up on it?

If he hadn’t been growing into a powerful telekinetic, if the entire rest of his cohort wasn’t failing miserably, they probably would have given him more of a chance.

**Od-ut:** The Threat Evaluators probably _evaluated_ him as wanting to put them through a wall, and couldn’t _imagine_ why a rational individual would desire such a thing.

* * *

**stheere answered your post:** **  
****Hey Medeesee! Tell us about yourself!**  
  
Medeesee: Well… I hatched on a bugbear colony planet. The rush there wasn’t really big, even though the hunting was _really_ easy. Od-ut said the resources weren’t as good as the hunting might make it seem, because it was a recently terraformed planet and it didn’t have much, um, diversity in plant and animal life, or a lot of good territory. So there was a lot of, uh, I think Od-ut called it _intrapredation_.

Od-ut: It would be more informative to describe it as lethal competition, resource robbery, and cannibalism, especially of juveniles. _Intrapredation_ is the descriptor we use for nymph swarms. It’s a less emotionally loaded term.

Od-ut: I will add that it escapes me how bugbears can have such an overpowering cannibalism taboo and not have an issue with in-species breedhosting. Most of them understand that it involves killing and is morally wrong, but they still don’t have the sense of visceral revulsion that they do to cannibalism.

Medeesee: Anyway, that’s what happened to my nestmate. And maybe my dam, she just… didn’t come back.

Medeesee: I was old enough to scrape by — I mean, I could fly and I knew how to find food — but I had these nestling siblings a little older than _Iolanthe_ is. They couldn’t fly, and I couldn’t carry them, and I definitely couldn’t hold the territory, and I left them. They probably got eaten. I’m supposed to feel bad about it, but they were really obnoxious and they didn’t like me either and I don’t miss them.

Od-ut: That didn’t make the Evaluators any more pleased with him.

Medeesee: I was on my own for… a while. I scavenged a lot. Then the goblins got me, and things were better.

Medeesee: I liked drawing, and learning to read — I still read, but I have to read over people’s shoulders. The educational videos were very interesting. I think even the food was better. I really don’t understand why anyone — at least any pixie — _wouldn’t_ want to get picked up by goblins.

Rodanah: That’s because he has _terrible empathy_.

* * *

Medeesee  
\--Male  
\--Clutchmate, nestling half-siblings, and probably dam all killed by pixie "intrapredation"  
\--Mostly hates other pixies  
\--Tried really, really hard to satisfy the Threat Evaluators and not be a pixie  
\--Judged to have inadequate empathy, especially towards other pixies  
\--Od-ut thinks he could have learned empathy given time and wasn't a threat  
\--Fostered with Shedemee after intake; doesn't like him very much, but tries to get along with him because he knows he's supposed to  
\--Admires Rodanah, whom he didn't meet until after death

Rodanah  
\--Female  
\--One of the few pixies who really felt a sense of community for pixiekind  
\--Very close to her clutchmate Rodanee  
\--Did very well with higher emotions  
\--Could get along all right with individual goblins, but hated what goblins as a group did to pixies as a group, and always responded to Threat Evaluators by wanting to kill them  
\--Respects Medeesee's cool head, but not happy with his general disdain for other pixies

Rodanee  
\--Female  
\--Very close to her clutchmate Rodanah, and usually follows her lead unless she gets distracted  
\--Higher emotions probably not quite as good as Rodanah's, but it was hard to be sure  
\--Lousy impulse control, even among pixie subjects

Shedemee  
\--Male  
\--Lost his clutchmate pre-intake, fostered with Medeesee  
\--More attached to Medeesee than Medeesee is to him  
\--Often tries to get Medeesee's approval

Ippix  
\--Reared from infancy by bugbear group planning on using them as a breedhost  
\--Wings amputated before necrotic atrophy could set in  
\--Doesn't really know how to be a pixie  
\--Killed by a pixie subject they were asked to talk to

Soranay and Soranoh  
\--Female  
\--Clutchmates who do nothing whatsoever to make it any easier for strangers or non-pixies to tell them apart  
\--Understood the idea of forming alliances better than a lot of pixies, but were regrettably fascinated with the concept of backstabbing and would contemplate it for hours

Laytahree and Laytahroh  
\--Male  
\--Died younger than the others  
\--From the most recent pixie education attempt  
\--Not notable in their higher emotions or their self-control, but very curious; they want to learn

Talohkay  
\--Male  
\--Was a single birth  
\--Involved in caring for younger half-siblings past infancy, so he's a good source on what leads to normal development in pixies  
\--(That's a utility belt)  
\--Befriended Megohlay post-intake

Megohlay  
\--Female  
\--Was a single birth  
\--Name, color, and location of intake suggest possible distant relationship to Medeesee, but not one either cares to acknowledge or investigate  
\--Befriended Talohkay post-intake

* * *

**rocknrollally asked a question** **  
** **I only just noticed that Ippix is genderless - any elaboration on that?**

Ippix was raised from infancy by bugbears, who have six biological sexes and at least that many genders, which don’t line up well with pixies’ biological sex. Ippix was treated as a Tau, because to reactionary bugbears that’s the sex that should expect to be a breedhost, which is what they were raising a pixie for. Gender as Ippix witnessed it was something which made no intuitive sense and was mostly used to push people around.

Later, Ippix was picked up by some goblins, who don’t have biological sexes or genders, and who didn’t try to argue when Ippix said “fuck that shit, I’m not playing”. It struck them as a sensible reaction, especially since Ippix would never experience normal pixie puberty due to lack of necessary developmental stimuli as a child (the same deal which leads to wing amputation).

Some time later, after Ippix was dead and nothing could be done about anything, an Educator with more alien-gender-expertise pointed out that someone should have made sure Ippix wanted to write off all gender and not just reactionary bugbear gender.


	5. Cut Scene: Nymph Swarm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation between Eridan and Swarm-Two-Outlier-One I never found a good place for.

"Can you -- _stop_ being so _happy_ at me all the fucking time!"

_happy_ NO-SORRY _happy_ WHY-PROBLEM _happy_

"Because Fef broke up with me for no good reason and I've been here all alone and I think I have a right to feel _bad_ about it!"

_happy_ content _LOSE-YOUR-SWARM_ happy _NOT-GOOD_ happy _LONERS-ARE-EASY-PREY_

You shouldn't expect a jellyfish to understand quadrants, but-- "Me'n'Fef were a, a swarm, and then she said we weren't anymore. For no reason!"

_happy_ HARD-TO-UNDERSTAND _happy_ NYMPH-SWARMS-DON'T-SEND-AWAY _happy_

"Yeah, cause it's fucking unconscionable."

_happy_ NYMPH-PROBLEM-TO-SWARM _happy_ SWARM-CONSUMES _happy_

"The swarm -- _what_?"


	6. Missing half of a conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both sides of Aradia's conversation with Medeesee (which we saw from a goblin POV).

A: Sorry I had to brush you off in public. Everyone's nervous enough already. So tell me, _is_ it a boy or a girl?

M: It's a female. The goblins did a scan in the medical chamber.

A: You couldn't have told otherwise?

M: Well, I mean -- I could have told if it was adult, and I was an adult, and it was breeding season -- if it _mattered_.

A: Interesting. What about the pixie that attacked us?

M: I didn't see that one. I was watching Od-ut.

A: That's the goblin that argued with Terezi about justice, and then… it was the one that… It had the other goblins come in and pale-molest everyone? Yes, I'm sure you don't think that was molestation, but it was, all right?

M: Yes. She was -- on our project.

A: Mm-hmm?

M: Maybe you could tell her that what it did to all of you wouldn't have worked on us, so she shouldn't feel bad for not trying it.

A: Worked to do what?

M: Get us cowed before the Threat Evaluators came in. We just would have been annoyed and confused.

A: Uh-huh.

M: And she shouldn't feel bad about not medicating us, either. I know the Rodas responded pretty well, since Rodanah says Rodanee was always like that, but it made the Laytahs even stupider.

A: Are those some of the others who were in the medblock?

M: Laytahree was on top of the monitors, Laytahroh and Rodanee were fighting, then Shedemee jumped in which he should not have done-- Laytahree and Laytahroh are the yellow-green ones. They're young, but they don't have to be _that_ stupid.

A: And what's your name?

M: Medeesee. My dam was Medahnay. She did not name my sire. I was hatched… I'm not sure how long ago it was now. It was nine seasons between when I hatched and when I died.

A: They killed you for not being teachable?

M: They always kill pixies for being unteachable. But Od-ut was really sad. She thinks of us like her nestlings.

A: You know it can't see you, right? I don't think any of them can.

M: If I wasn't sure before the Laytahs joined us I am now.


	7. Cut Scene: Catching up with Kerrit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aradia catching up with Kerrit, after the psychic dampers are removed.

"How are you?" you ask. "I hope the pixies aren't giving you too much trouble?"

_"They're a pain, but nothing I can't handle. Like going through a cloud of microasteroids. But Silencer Paneater threw himself off the ship."_

You blink. How would that even work? "So now he's just… floating in space somewhere?"

_"I guess so? Can ghosts travel through space on their own?"_

"I honestly have no idea." You picture Paneater flailing in the void, forever. He could have just asked you to dispel him -- but then you're rust. "Wirewhip?"

_"Mostly shouting at the hob-things."_

"Oooookay then."


End file.
